SC gives relief on eviction of Colaba Causeway hawkers

The Supreme Court has stayed the eviction of Colaba Causeway hawkers, prompting the Clean Heritage Colaba Residents’ Association to challenge the order.

MUMBAI: The BMC will be unable to evict the Colaba Causeway hawkers for now, as the Supreme Court has granted a stay on their removal. “They shall not be evicted without leave of this court,” stated Justice Abhay Oka’s SC order dated January 27, of which HT has a copy. In response, the Clean Heritage Colaba Residents’ Association (CHCRA) plans to file an intervention plea challenging the stay order in the SC.

SC gives relief on eviction of Colaba Causeway hawkers

The SC order came after the Colaba Causeway Tourism Hawkers’ Stall Union filed a special leave petition (SLP) in the apex court against the impugned judgment and final order dated December 12, 2024 of the HC in a writ petition against the state of Maharashtra. The SLP involves 253 hawkers, although the BMC asserts that only 76 are licensed stall owners.

The hawkers’ union has stated in the SLP that the HC dismissed its writ petition without adverting to the merits of its submissions raised and without considering the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending Act) 2014 Act. The Act was implemented by the Centre on May 1, 2014, but has not yet been notified by the state government.

The petition also states that the members of the hawkers’ union comprise 253 hawkers/ vendors who have been carrying out vending activities since 1978 or, at the very least, since prior to May 1, 2014, on a regular basis at Colaba Causeway-Shahid Bhagat Singh Road, holding valid licenses/survey receipts and are all recognised as “stationary vendors” under the Street Vendors Act.

Mohammed Ismail Shaikh, president, Colaba Causeway Tourism Hawkers’ Stall Union, told HT that they had earlier filed a contempt petition in the HC, as the BMC was taking action against even those hawkers that were surveyed in 2014. “But the HC dismissed our contempt petition on December 12, 2024 and hence we filed an SLP in SC, where we got a stay. The court said that unless a proper hearing is given to us, no action can be initiated by the BMC.”

While the union claims that 253 hawkers/vendors are present in Colaba Causeway, according to the BMC only 76 are licensed holders. “It is true that there are only 76 license holders,” said Shaikh. “However, in 2014, a survey was conducted and according to it, 253 are eligible. The BMC is taking action even against these 253 hawkers.”

Shaikh added that the 253 hawkers were willing to sort out any issues that Colaba residents had. “We are willing to organise ourselves and go by the stall design that MLA Rahul Narwekar has planned,” he said. “We do not want to eat into pedestrian space.”

Advocate Prerak Choudhary, representing CHCRA, retorted that pavements were meant for people to walk. “It is unfortunate that our footpaths have become shopping markets because of the increase in hawking activities,” he said. “With due respect to street vendors’ right to earn a livelihood, there has to be some reasonable restriction upon such rights. Street vendors cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, claim a right to put up stalls on pavements and obstruct free ingress and egress of pedestrians.”

Choudhary said that the Bombay HC had passed “commendable orders” in this regard. “We feel it is necessary for us to place the views of pedestrians and citizens in general, and that of Colaba residents in particular, before the apex court,” he said. “Therefore, given that the hawkers have moved the SC, we shall file our intervention so that local residents are also heard while deciding this issue which affects the rights of citizens to free use of pavements.”

When asked about the hawkers’ contention that the Street Vendors Act of 2014 had rendered 253 hawkers eligible, Choudhary said, “The 2014 survey cannot undermine public welfare. The Latin maxim ‘Salus populi suprema lex esto’, which means ‘Welfare of the public is supreme law’, ought to be upheld. We cannot take away the right of residents to an obstruction-less pavement in the name of providing protection to hawkers on the basis of some survey.”

Colaba Causeway is one of the 20 locations in Mumbai identified in the BMC’s affidavit in HC as part of its initiative to make the area hawker-free. Multiple hawkers’ unions and federations had filed intervention applications in the Bombay high court’s suo motu cognisance of the city’s illegal hawking menace in December last year.